haoh, originally contention, revolt, was, after the Conquest, the technical term for a legal process or lawsuit. These papers, therefore, form part of the record in one of those interminable legal cases in which the[56] Spanish law delighted. The plaintiffs in the case seem to have been the Xahila family, who brought the action to recover some of their ancient possessions or privileges, as one of the two ruling families of the Cakchiquel nation; and in order to establish this point, they filed in their plea the full history of their tribe and genealogy of their family, so far as was known to them by tradition or written record. It belongs to the class of legal instruments, called in Spanish law Titulos, family titles. A number of such, setting forth the descent and rights of the native princes in Central America, are in existence, as the Titulo de Totonicapan, etc.
The date of the present rescript is not accurately fixed. As it includes the years 1619-20, it must have been later than those dates. From the character of the paper and writing, I should place it somewhere between 1620 and 1650.
In his Advertencia to his translation of it, Señor Gavarrete asserts that the document is in the handwriting of one of the native authors. This is not my opinion. It is in the small, regular, perfectly legible hand of a professional scribe, a notarial clerk, no doubt, thoroughly at home in the Cakchiquel language, and trained in the phonetic characters, introduced with such success by Father Parra, as I have already mentioned. The centre lines and catch-words are in large, clear letters, so as to attract the eye of the barrister, as
Vae memoria chire vinak chij.
THIS IS THE STATEMENT OF THE TORTS.
or,
Vae memoria
anavinakil.
THIS IS A RECORD OF THE WITNESSES.
[57]The document is made up of the depositions and statements of a number of members of the Xahila family, but that around which the chief interest centres, and that which alone is printed in this volume, is the history of his nation as written out by one of them who had already reached adult years, at the epoch of the first arrival of the Spaniards, in 1524. Unfortunately, his simple-hearted modesty led him to make few personal allusions, and we can glean little information about his own history. The writer first names himself, in the year 1582, where he speaks of “me, Francisco Ernantez Arana.”[57-1] The greater part of the manuscript, however, was composed many years before this. Its author says that his grandfather, the king Hun Yg, and his father, Balam, both died in 1521, and his own marriage took place in 1522. As it was the custom of his nation to marry young, he was probably, at the time, not over 15 years of age.[57-2]
That Francisco Ernantez was not the author of the first part of the document seems evident. Under the year 1560 occurs the following entry:—